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Embodiment of text after conceptualism: Language and video in Fast trip, long drop (1993) and Cornered (1988)

EMBODIMENT OF TEXT AFTER CONCEPTUALISM:
LANGUAGE AND VIDEO IN FAST TRIP, LONG DROP (1993)
AND CORNERED (1988)
by
Zemula Barr
________________________________________________________________________
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirement for the Degree
MASTER OF PUBLIC ART STUDIES
May 2011
Copyright 2011 Zemula Barr

This thesis presents a comparative analysis of Gregg Bordowitz’s Fast Trip, Long Drop (1993) and Adrian Piper’s Cornered video installation from 1988. Heavily influenced by early Conceptual Art, both Piper and Bordowitz bring language into the aesthetic realm as a means of complicating visual representation and its meanings. Bordowitz employs the literary strategies of fragmented narrative and allegory to disrupt heroic depictions of people with AIDS used by the activist movement that flatten individual subjectivities for the sake of coalition. Piper deconstructs visual signifiers of race through the performance of logical argumentation, which creates a dissonant relationship between the language she speaks and her visual performance as an art object. Both artists’ use of video to embody these texts allows for the affective performance of written texts, moving the Conceptual discourse away from the art object to the self in relation to the broader social and political discourses of AIDS activism and anti-racism.

EMBODIMENT OF TEXT AFTER CONCEPTUALISM:
LANGUAGE AND VIDEO IN FAST TRIP, LONG DROP (1993)
AND CORNERED (1988)
by
Zemula Barr
________________________________________________________________________
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirement for the Degree
MASTER OF PUBLIC ART STUDIES
May 2011
Copyright 2011 Zemula Barr